Benchmarks for Britain, not for Norfolk

Eight Benchmarks for Britain is apparently the keystone of Conservative policy where the economy's concerned.

Search it for the word rural and it comes back with "0 documents and 0 instances".

Here are a few soundbites:

"We will safeguard Britain’s energy security and reduce our exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices by ensuring that we have a diverse range of electricity generating capacity and a resilient energy infrastructure."

No mention of how this government in waiting plans to tackle the volatile fuel prices most people in rural Norfolk notice every time they fill their car up, in the county where pump prices are some of the highest outside London.

"We will increase the proportion of tax revenues accounted for by environmental taxes, but any additional revenues from new green taxes that are principally designed to change behaviour will be used to reduce the burden of taxation elsewhere."

This is what the fuel duty escalator was all about when the Major Government launched it. Instead of becoming an environmental tax, it's become a tax on living in the countryside.

"We will protect health spending in real terms and honour our commitments on international aid, but the plan will include cuts in many other departmental budgets, as well as a one year public sector pay freeze in 2011 excluding the one million lowest paid workers, bringing forward the date at which the state pension age starts to rise to 66 to no earlier than 2016 for men and 2020 for women."

So we're all going to have to go on working longer to pay for Labour in the long run - especially if we're unlucky enough to live in rural Norfolk.